What would YOU consult with these consultants?

And would you...er...intimate these consultants that you wanted to consult them?

I don't like posting about current events and politics and such, because there are plenty of others who do that much better than I do.

So, not a word about the Twenty20 match, the CET exams tomorrow and the day after, and the earthquake that my daughter felt....

So here's Sri Circle Goddess....

Here's the pretty temple:





and here's the sign :






The name is given because the temple is situated on Sir C V Raman Circle. And it's interesting that the Indian Institute of Science is referred to in the sign as Rashtriya Vigyana Mandira...which also translates to National Temple for Science.


And here's the goddess, preparing to pierce the evil hide of the demon. His face is hidden behind the foliage of the tree (I could not enter further without removing my footwear) but I like the fairly polite way she is just sort of poking his epidermis with that spear, and he looks as if he would kill her with just his underarm B.O.





There are plenty of such beautiful temples dotting this lovely city of mine....

I am truly struggling with an internet connection that is like the Sardarji's car turn-indicator (someone asked him, "I will switch on the indicator, let me know if it's working," and his reply was, "It's working,it's not working, it's working, it's not working....)..it comes and goes and comes and goes and a post that should take a few minutes has taken HOURS. But I *will* be victorious and make the post yet....


This is all about the non-birding and wildlifing part of the trip to Devarayanadurga, which I have already posted about. I want to put on record the places that we went to. Here's the first place on this Karnataka signboard:




( all about the places in Devarayanadurga, and our TV appearance, under the cut )






So those are the places, and you already know the birding and the spotting that we did while we roamed over the place....

Update: the clip by Kasturi Channel is also apparently airing regularly....after Avinash called me to say it had been broadcast, I also had a call from someone else, thanking me for choosing the Mungaru Malhe song!

I spent a wonderful day with fellow naturalists-- from the NTP, namely mamtanaidu and anirudhc, and Kiran Immidi (a friend of sainath's),Arun, and Sheshadri, who is really knowledgeable about birds and mammals, and was fantastic at id-ing tracks...he id'd leopard, boar, peacock,civet, and hare tracks for us..... and in the Devarayanadurga State Forest area, in Tumkur.

A detailed post will follow when this four-letter word foul internet connection allows me to post my pics (I got some nice ones!) to Flickr, but these I *was* able to upload, and I couldn't wait to post them.


We saw two CRIMSON ROSE butterflies mating....





Then, as they mated, they flew into the air, and the butterfly on ...er..the top did all the flying; then they landed on another plant not far from us, and we rushed to get that....





Later, we also saw dragonflies doing the same thing, but I couldn't get photographs.

There are, however, pics of leopard pugmarks along with a peacock's, various raptors, wild jasmine, the scent of which was a heady accompaniment to us the entire day, and lots and lots more....

I spotted these two people at Jayanagar 4th Block the other day; they are, in fact, mendicants, but add value by dressing up as mythological characters. The characters are usually identifiable, but I could not make out who these two were supposed to represent. I wonder..perhaps it is Rama and Lakshmana?





But if so, the bows and arrows are missing.

They were taking a little break from work; I saw them a little earlier, asking for alms....

Karthik had told me that he would be free this weekend, so I tried to organize an outing; the weather was not very predictable, so he said that rather than Manchinabele, which was much further away, we should go to Lalbagh, where if it rained, we could do some id'ing of hot idlis and coffee at any nearby Darshini...

We were a round (well, none of us are ROUND, really, but...) dozen...Karthik the NTP Guruji, and the NTP members were, in alphabetical order, Adarsh,Anjali,Geeta,Pallavi,Prasanna,Vittal, and me; and then there were, also in alphabetical order, Vittal's son Adu (it should be Jayaditya, but I want to put him first!),Vittal's friend and potential NTP-taker Girish, Nisarg, whom I have met at various birding and wildlife locations, and Pallavi's husband Preetam, who just took Sudhir Shivaram 's course on photography, and was there to try out all the newly-learned stuff....


(  LOTS of pics if you click, or you could skip! )

A lovely weekend, spent with a lot of friends...what could be nicer?

We went to Lalbagh a few days ago, and enjoyed ourselves very much....

Karthik tells me this is the Flacourtia flower; every March, it is paradise for the bees:




Sometimes they feast, three at a time!





Here's the fresh offshoot on a cactus:





( lots of photos of all kinds here )

But finally, the sun was getting hot, and we left Lalbagh to the flowers and the bees....





Oh, I do love Lalbagh....!

Some of us had been to Ramnagara last year, but after that, senior birders were concerned about the disturbance to the LONG-BILLED VULTURES, so birders have stopped going there now. But I think, after seeing amoghavarsha's post today, enough time has elapsed that I can post my bird photographs on my own blog at least.....

Here's my usual sunrise photo:







Ramnagara is a beautiful place, and I have posted about the beauty of the Ramagiri temple there at

http://deponti.livejournal.com/320723.html


Let me show you this lovely scene...I call that centre rock the "Eternal Triangle"!





There is an old ruined structure on the lower part of the sheet rock; it might have been a temple at one time, I don't know, but it looks picturesque:




Some more of my pics of the Ramagiri Temple area are at


http://www.flickr.com/photos/20401428@N08/page4/


A really beautiful, scenic spot!




( You can see some raptors if you click here )



I find that these birds are not uncommon in north India (I saw many of them in Kanha) but the idea of the informal ban was that one should not disturb their nesting site here, as their numbers here are very, very low.

She is an inescapable part of the urban Indian's life. She is, in general, underpaid in terms of just cash; but she gets her due in terms of other intangibles. Most people could not get through the day's housework without her help. And (again this is a generalization) she is the strong bread-winner for the family, often managing a good-for-nothing, drunkard husband, trying to send the children to school, and trying to have a normal life as well...



Yes, often maids steal, are unreliable, and hold householders to ransom..but they are just often exploited, too. I must say, though, that in apartment buildings, there seems to be a good balance; our maids are often treated as part of our household.

This one was actually sweeping the road in front of her employer's home! Surely a little above and beyond her usual duties....? I loved her bright saree, and when she looked at me photographing her, she gave me a sweet smile.

It was really tough, after getting back home at 1.45pm after our monthly QuizFamilies meet, to wake up again at 5am, to go to Turahalli; but Chandan had been talking about his trekking trips for so long that I was determined to go on one with him!

Chandan was a little worried about whether KM and I would be able to make it up the slope...but he need not have worried, as the slope was a very, very gentle one, and in any case, we were ambling up and down, as we kept looking for birds!

For me, any trip into the forest/wild areas has both the bird and the non-bird components; the two together make up the whole experience, so if one is disappointing, the other generally makes up! The trip to Turahalli was, primarily, to enjoy the beauty of the landscape, but the birds didn't let us down (though the bird photography part was pathetic!) Let me discuss the bird component first:

This started off on a really awesome note. We had hardly stepped out of the car and on to the slope of the path that led to the Munishwara temple when we sighted the Eurasian Eagle Owl, sitting quite a way from us in the early morning light. Of course, there was no opportunity to take anywhere near a decent shot, but since, for me, the documentation is the most important part of bird photography, I have no problems in including two of my terrible shots. One is practically a silhouette that only a committed bird-watcher could recognize as the EURASIAN EAGLE OWL (click on the words for a much better picture!):






Here's the same pic, slightly zoomed and cropped; it's terribly grainy, but at least one can make out that the subject IS the owl:






( the rest of the morning, some birds , and some lovely sights...if you click on this )

Mainly birding...so if not interested, move along to the next friend's post!

On Sunday, the plan to go to Hebbal Lake with the rest of the bngbirds group got changed to T G Halli Dam backwaters. So sainath's friend Immidi picked me up at 5am (no, I did not tell him to pick me up Immidi-ately!) and we went and met up with Sai and anushsh and off we went.

shivakumar_l had gone ahead, as he lives much closer to the T G Halli area.


The backwaters area is lovely; not many trees, but open ground, rather rocky and hilly, with the water proving an attraction for the various birds.






( click here for bird and birder photos )


I was also lucky to meet up with two excellent photographers, H S Ganesh, and the youngster, Ramnath Chandrasekhar, who showed us some of his beautiful photographs, too. Here they are, exchanging notes:





The sun got too hot even for our enthusiasm, and we decided to return, but not before the others got some super shots of a KESTREL at rest and in flight, which I missed...of course!

A fantastic morning of birding..many thanks to Sainath, Immidi, Shiva and Anush for making it happen!

Sainath's superb pictures of that (&*^ kestrel (which waited for me to go away before it came and posed for him) are at


http://sainath.livejournal.com/115491.html


See and enjoy that guy's superb camera skills!

With Vehicles...





Without....




With Trees....





Without...






No further comments!

When my son-in-law was here, he noticed that autorickshaws in Bangalore often have other car brand names such as "Volvo" and "Benz" written on them, and also incredibly inflated engine capacities, such as "1000 cc" and "2000 cc". Well, this auto decided that 2000 cc was old hat, and decided to be more modern:





I am waiting for the first 2008 cc autorickshaw on the roads, and hope I have my MLC (Mary's Lamb Camera) with me when I do spot it!

I had done a post on these autos, and the messages they carry, for Metroblogs at


http://bangalore.metblogs.com/archives/2007/05/automessages.phtml


I do enjoy carting my MLC along as I traverse this wonderful city that I call home!

So...my job offer.

Refer to

http://deponti.livejournal.com/349485.html


...I was, out of the blue, offered a job with Bangalore Walks which is partnering with the Govt of Karnataka, Maple, the caterers, and the Indian Railways (or should I say the Southern Railways) to do this heritage train tour.

The train ride is brand new so the job content will evolve. Hopefully, I will have the skills required, and learn some of them.

I am leaving on the trial train ride today, and it will be a trial for me, too, as I am rated on my abilities; I too will have a chance to see if I can bring the right skills to this, and add value to the tourists' experience of this great State of mine.

I am suffering collywobbles. I am afraid of falling flat on my face. But I also know that given the right circumstances the fit will be good. I was very impressed with Arun Pai and his presentation was excellent, as are his walks. I would like to work for this....

So...wish me luck, someone net the butterflies in my stomach....I am off in a short while.

The train is supposed to be wifi enabled throughout. I am photo-documenting the trip, too. And keeping notes for further improvement on the train run. So you might hear more from me.

I made this as a post on Metroblogs: the text of it is here at


http://bangalore.metblogs.com/archives/2008/02/bangalorea_chance_to_become_a.phtml


I will let the comments stand, as I want to raise the debate and get everyone thinking...and to hear other points of view, which may differ very widely from mine.

Here's my chetongueek (that's "tongue in cheek") article in

citizenmatters.in

on the Bangalore Bird Race...

http://www.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/58-the-great-bangalore-bird-ra


Enjoy and let me have your comments, plus or minus!

For the first time, I was able to visit Hebbal Lake, as Garima Bhatia had offered to give interested people a lift to the first Sunday birding session there. So KM's cousin-from-Qatar, anushsh and I went there early in the morning to find that we had "mist" a lot...there was so much of it, in fact, that bird activity began long after we reached there. But a hot cup of tea followed by another helped put a lot of warmth in us, and as the experienced birders reached the place, it was like a who's who of the birding community!



Subbu and co started their waterfowl census and this meant that we did not walk around as the Lalbagh contingent usually do. It was sad to see the Oberois' signboard charging fees for walking around what has, so far, been a lovely public space, but let's not get into that here...


The first thing that I decided to snap, the wild Morning Glory....





( more about the morning at Hebbal )


We feasted on the lovely wild baby tomatoes that were growing all over...





Garima dropped us all the way back home and thanks to her, we had a thoroughly enjoyable morning birding!

Here's an entry from the LJ of shortindiangirl....

http://shortindiangirl.livejournal.com/40409.html


I agree with most of that...I started blogging for my homesick child, very far away...and it was a welcome surprise to realize that I had more than one reader!

Here's a pic of the grasses all lit up by the sunshine, against the granite that is so characteristic of this part of Karnataka....





And here's a pic,taken at Lalbagh on Sunday evening, which shows why it's called the SPOT-BILLED PELICAN....






Oh, no reason to post those photographs, I "simbly" did it...!

And for those who don't want owls....


Here's the sunrise yesterday.....








and here's the the Tabebuia Avellanedae in full bloom in Lalbagh....








Er, for those who don't want any birds..I'm sorry, that Golden Oriole has STILL managed to get into a corner of the picture, I think!



This weekend was just superb...to be out in the morning, with like-minded people, observing and absorbing all of nature...that's paradise on earth to me!